‘Mirage’ movie review: Jeethu Joseph drowns us in the mirage of a perfect thriller

Sometimes, the final moments in a movie suddenly brings its title to mind, making us marvel at the ingenuity of naming it that way. Jeethu Joseph’s Mirage attempts something similar, only that one is left wondering how the titular warning was not fully understood. The final act of the movie is filled with mirages, one scene after another, each of which misleads us into thinking that this is the big reveal, only for the screenwriter to throw another ‘twist’ in the tale at us.

After encountering several such mirages, one huffs and puffs to reach the real climax of the film, vowing never to trust any character in a film. In the larger scheme of things, screenwriters Jeethu and Srinivasan Abrol are also seeking a mirage — that of the perfect thriller climax which no one would guess. Red herrings, convoluted stories and obscure incidents tenuously connected to the narrative are thrown at us with this sole aim. That also proves to be the film’s undoing.

The narrative revolves around the death of Kiran (Hakkim Shajahan) in a train accident. His fiancée Abhirami (Aparna Balamurali) suspects that there is more to his death than meets the eye when the henchman of a businessman and a top police officer lands up at her doorstep looking for a hard disk with possibly explosive material that Kiran was supposed to have with him. Joining her in the never-ending quest for the hard disk is Ashwin (Asif Ali), reporter of an online channel who is on the lookout for a big story.

Even as the film plunges us straight into the mystery, without wasting much time in setting the scene and easing us into it, the over-dramatic presentation and the stilted dialogues, especially of the apparent antagonists, gives one an inkling of what is in store. One of the characters, who is shown as being close to the protagonist, is written and portrayed in such an obviously suspicious manner, that the big reveal about the person at the half-way point appears almost laughable. Or maybe, that was an obvious giveaway to mislead us ahead of all the earth-shattering twists in store.

One is left intrigued by the mystery only at a few points, especially during Abhirami’s encounter with Kiran’s mother. Except for these few phases, the film serves us a variation of the same sequence of events, of the protagonists following some lead while being pursued from either side, followed by a reveal. The staging of some of the scenes is so ordinary that even the shock of the events do not get adequately conveyed to us.

The absence of a coherent, believable screenplay and the compulsion to deliver one shocking twist after another drains Mirage of any impact. 

Mirage is currently running in cinemas